Bonus Test Question

For 10,000 Imaginary Bonus Points... Which student asked me to blog about him?

Answer: Cory

(There you go, Cory. I blogged about you.) :)

Spring Break: Friday Update

Tuesday was lovely and relaxed, and we spent about an hour sitting at the coffee shop blogging and chatting and... (okay, I don't really know what Mr. Chandler was working on...) before heading home. The coffee shop owners home-school their son, so they didn't realize it was spring break this week. The owner Dave mentioned to Mr. Chandler that he'd noticed we were there during the day instead of just evenings and weekends, and Mr. Chandler told him it was spring break. Dave said their business had dropped about 20% this week, so he was relieved to know that it was because teachers and students were vacationing elsewhere. I'm glad so many teachers and students come here. It's a cheerful place, and we usually see people we know. On Tuesday, one of our summer camp girls was here with her mom. Today, we're sitting one table away from the school board chairwoman. Sometimes we have "grading parties" here -- a group of middle school language arts (and sometimes social studies) teachers gathered to drink caffeinated beverages and chat and grade papers in a place that's less lonely than our individual desks on a rainy evening.

On Wednesday, I spent the entire day in a meeting at the district office. Our human resources director, his secretary, the union president and I were working through 140-some requests from teachers for transfers or changes of placement. It was not as crazy as last spring, when we were overseeing the RIF process, and it's far less emotional because no one is being laid off this time. I think we managed to find placements for about half of the people who wanted them. I wish we could find placements for everyone who asked, especially the high school teachers. I keep hoping that the school board will decide to release some of the $8 million sitting in their savings account and add back some more teaching positions, but I don't know if that will happen or not.

Wednesday afternoon when I got back to my car to go home, my favorite radio station was playing ALL of Dvorak's New World Symphony. I ended up sitting in the parking lot of the district office listening to the rest of it. (There's the music part of my spring break checklist.) I'm not a huge Dvorak fan, but I do like the New World Symphony. I started my car just as they were starting the "Largo" portion -- a section of music frequently used by cartoonists to indicate morning time (but not to be confused with Grieg's slightly more famous "Morning" from Peer Gynt.)

Yesterday (Thursday), after returning some books to my good friend the library, Mr. Chandler and I went to see the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie with a Language Arts friend of mine. It was fabulous! First, let me say that my disgust at the character does not carry over in any way to how they made the movie. The movie was extremely well-done! The character is a wretched, selfish little middle school boy, but he was in the book version as well. The actors were fantastic, especially the horrible high school brother Roderick, and they all managed to look like the sketches in the book. There were a few minor story changes, but they stayed true to the important stuff. It was hilarious, AND they did a good job on it. Hurray!

I still need to bake things in order to complete my spring break to-do list. I've just spent so much time reading that I haven't been paying much attention to other things. I'll get on it this evening... after I finish my book!

Spring Break: Tuesday Update

Let's look over my spring break to-do list:

Reading? Check!
Music?
Gardening? Check!
Baking?
My dogs? Check!

Three out of five, and it's only Tuesday!

Yesterday (Monday), after I got home from counseling and Mr. Chandler got home from playing basketball, we worked on planting out the flower beds in our backyard. This involved a shopping trip to Home Depot (NOT to put flowers next to the dead stop sign, although that did cross my mind). It also involved a shopping trip to Fred Meyer because they have the best annual plants. While we were there, Mr. Chandler noticed a bird’s nest above the doors to the garden center. The nest is nestled into the hole made by the second R in “GARDEN CENTER.” At one point, there was a tiny baby bird looking out at us. The rest of our project involved a shopping trip to my favorite nursery because… well, because it’s lovely and full of gorgeous plants and I could spend hours there. …and because they have whatever I couldn’t get at Fred Meyer. Then we carted it all home and spent a few hours working in the back – until it got so dark that I could no longer see what I had watered and what I hadn’t watered. I love those kinds of yard work sessions; they remind me of summer.

Our dogs ran around the yard while we worked. Big Dog ran laps and sniffed everything very quickly. Little Dog walked around and sniffed everything very slowly. Also, there was a lot of peeing on things. They didn’t do a lot of barking, although they were both very interested in what was happening on the other side of the fence in the neighbor’s yard (so nosy!). They did a little digging in the flower beds and peed on stuff a little more. All in all, a successful dog evening. The only thing missing was water (and possibly some waterfowl to chase or bark at). We will have to go to the lake later this week. I keep telling Mr. Chandler that he should let me get a duck for our backyard, but he keeps telling me no.

Spring Break: Monday Update

My 5 favorite activities:
1. Reading
2. Music
3. Gardening
4. Baking
5. My dogs (Dogs count as an activity, right? Mine are certainly active!)

My spring break plans:
*Spend some time with everything on the list above.

I began my spring break with therapy sessions – one on Saturday with my parents’ therapist, and one on Monday with my own therapist. My parents are so weird. At one point, my mom started arguing with her therapist while my dad laughed at them. (I wasn’t involved at this point, thankfully. I found it very awkward to watch, but I guess they sort of forgot I was there. I almost took out my iPod and started playing video games, but I didn’t think that would help anything.) Oh well. They want me there, so I keep going. Interesting coincidence – both my therapist and my parents’ therapist have wiener dogs. (Don’t ask me what that means; I’m just pointing it out.) My parents' therapist has a TINY little wiener dog named Tulip who is very friendly. She likes to answer the door for him and then escort us to our seats. I'm really glad that everyone in my family likes animals -- mom, dad, brother, brother's wife, husband, me... We're all animal lovers. Now we just have to train my niece Hannah. My brother and sis-in-law have a weird little Boston terrier named Lenny (after Lenny and Carl on The Simpsons). He's not the cutest dog in the world, but he is possibly the funniest. I'm guessing that Lenny will be following Hannah everywhere as soon as she starts walking.

On Sunday, I finished two graduate school assignments; cue my sense of relief/accomplishment! It’s nice not to have a bunch of work to do this week. I have a few things to prepare for my district office meeting on Wednesday, and I have to make an answer key for the assignments I’m giving to my students on Monday and Tuesday. Fortunately, the copies are already made and sitting on my desk at school. I have to clean my house before my friend comes over on Wednesday night. I probably should do some laundry so that I don’t end up wearing the exact same outfit every day this week… But that’s really it. I don’t have any other work to do. Isn’t that wonderful?

I've been thinking about my students off on spring break. I hope they're reading a lot, but I also hope they have the chance to go to exciting places and participate in really fun activities. They deserve a break! Maybe I should ask the PTSA if they would pay for a field trip to Disneyland or something...

A Parking Lot Persevoration

I saw the weirdest thing this morning (Friday, March 19th). A stop sign in the Home Depot parking lot near my school had been knocked over. It wasn’t on a street corner, either; it was at a parking aisle intersection within the parking lot. It had a huge boulder in front of it – ostensibly to keep people from hitting the sign. The signpost had been hit from behind and bent over the boulder, so it obviously wasn’t caused by someone failing to stop at the stop sign. Now I’m wondering what could have caused this carnage. Maybe there was a high-speed chase. (…through the Home Depot parking lot? Really?) Maybe a big truck carrying lumber couldn’t quite make its turn. Maybe a customer who had loaded too much into his/her car and was trying to make sure nothing fell out didn’t pay enough attention.

(Maybe I'm crazy. It’s entirely possible that the high degree of thought I’m pouring into this is an indication of the complete collapse of my sanity.) How many days until spring break?

Third Week of March

MONDAY
Resolution Report: Last week, I did a fantastic job on my in-classroom coffee resolution. Hurray for me!
Five days until spring break, and I feel like I have far too much to get done before then. It’s like planning a vacation and having a mile-long to-do list of things that have to be done BEFORE you can go on the trip. I have to grade papers and return them so kids can fix things over the break. I have to print and put together a packet of all of the transfer orders I've gotten from teachers throughout the district because we're meeting next week to go over them. I have to prepare the homework papers for my kids because I know it will be easier for them if they have a worksheet. I have to clean off my desk... Has anyone seen my brain?


TUESDAY
We had a surprisingly productive staff meeting this morning. We discussed PBS and how to reinforce student behavior expectations for the rest of the school year. I was impressed with the thoughts shared by various staff members, and we ended up with some great ideas. Mostly, I was thankful to be working in a school where staff input is welcomed, not squelched. We have a dance/activity hour on Friday of this week, and our principal said he was going to start pulling that privilege from kids who are failing multiple classes or who can’t manage their behavior successfully this week. Last year at this time, the principal at my old school was refusing to allow staff questions at staff meetings and telling us that kids who are failing classes or missing assignments need to dance more than anyone. I feel like I’ve stumbled into an alternate universe. It's all so weird and wonderful...


WEDNESDAY
Three days until spring break, and I’m losing it. This morning, I opened up Esis to take homeroom attendance and then started checking my seating chart. I ended up marking 11 kids absent before I realized that I was using my 1st period attendance list instead of homeroom. My mental faculties might not survive the next three days.

This afternoon, at our monthly union rep meeting, our union president stood up and reminded people to email her or the two grievance chairs (an elementary lit coach and myself) if they were concerned about transfers or placements for next year. Then she admitted to the entire rep council (about 30 people) that if the emails she receives from members are nasty, she doesn’t answer them. Instead, she forwards them to me and expects me to deal with them. It’s totally true; in fact, the treasurer stood up at that point and said, “Yeah, if members are calm, I send them to their building reps. If they’re upset, I send them to you,” and pointed at me. I guess I’m okay with this. Since I can manage to deliver a healthy mix of gentle tone and harsh reality all at once, it’s a logical part of my job. What occurred to me in the meeting was that this could explain why I’m always so much more tired than the rest of the officers. I’m the one dealing with all of the crazies!


THURSDAY
Two days until spring break, and I think I’m going crazy. (Wait... I think I've said that before. There seems to be a theme developing in my week.)

Hurray! The rest of the staff is just as crazy as I am! Today, the principal walked up to me in the hallway and handed me a sticky note with a smiley face and the number 28 on it. When I looked confused, he grinned and told me that was the number of hours left until we were free for spring break. (I had to calculate it… he’s counting down to 3 p.m. on Friday.)


FRIDAY
What an insane day!
I stopped at a different Starbucks this morning and actually went inside to buy coffee. I ordered my typical drink: triple grande, nonfat, extra hot, vanilla latte. When the man at the counter repeated my order back to me, he left out the triple part. I think my hands started shaking. PLEASE don’t deprive me of extra espresso shots on the craziest day of the month!

Dance duty was interesting. I was assigned to monitor things right outside the gym door, and to be available to run errands to various other activity locations as needed. It wasn’t really needed. Everything went fine, and then it was time for the kids to go home. Freedom… well, not really. I had to go back and clean up my room, pack a bag with all of my spring break work in it, and put some grades in so parents don’t panic about GPAs in the next week. Then I drove out to Clackamas for a haircut. I like haircuts; my hair salon lady is super funny and really nice. (I don’t think I’m supposed to call her a hair salon lady. My stylist? That’s not quite right. My hair care expert? I don’t know.) Anyway, she’s hilarious. She said she wanted to try something different, so she blow-dried and straightened my hair. It looked lovely, of course, but it’s not something for which I would ever sacrifice 30 minutes of morning sleep. She knows that; she just wanted to play with my hair, apparently.

And now I’m on vacation… tune in next week for a spring break update. If all goes according to plan, I'll be doing absolutely nothing!

Second Week of March

MONDAY
Resolution Report: I tired of spending so much money on my Starbucks mistress early last week, so I’ve gone back to my faithful classroom coffee pot. Let’s see if I can stay true to Mr. Coffee this week.

I missed my lunch and prep today for a meeting with a union member (teacher) and the principal. After school, I have another meeting with the principal. I have to read three chapters in my stupid, hateful textbook tonight. I have papers to grade, but I have no idea when I’m going to get to them. 10 school days until spring break...


TUESDAY
This morning we had another action team meeting. Hurray! I love those! (Oops, I might have dripped a little sarcasm there…) About halfway through the meeting, the sole male member of my action team looked at me and rolled his eyes at our two colleagues, who were once again interrupting each other and talking over one another. One of them is harping on us about getting something finished – even though we still have two weeks according to the deadline we all agreed on a month ago. The other is ranting about the philosophy of writing instruction and whining about the lack of time to plan together and how everyone else in the school scores work samples incorrectly.

When we were finally done having our lesson plans and scoring abilities questioned, I escaped to my classroom and immersed myself in a fog of formatted responses for connections to literature. I love this lesson, and the students typically do very well with it. Today my students are working on Connect to Text, Connect to Self, and Connect to World responses, and they had some fabulous ideas for connections to the story we read. There are days when I miss the nice people I worked with at my old school, especially my two dear language arts friends who knew what I was teaching. Then there are days like today when I am grateful for the isolated nature of my new position at my new school; it allows me to escape toxic meetings with opinionated people and retreat into my classroom and into the lessons. I am a language arts expert, and I like to think that I make it fairly interesting (or mildly entertaining) for my students. I’m going to forget about the stupid meetings. My kids are interacting with literature, and I love it.


WEDNESDAY
This is fun: Today in class we were discussing the four types of conflict in literature. I walked them through each type of conflict, and then we talked about examples from real life and from literature that we’ve read. Because I work at a middle school named for a semi-famous (not really) teen adventure author who wrote a ton of books about the wilderness and wild animals interacting with humans, my students had a very easy time coming up with Person vs. Nature examples. I usually teach this part by saying something like, “Nature is trying to kill you.” We start out talking about the obvious – hurricanes, earthquakes, being mauled by a bear – and end up in the silly section – a person trips and falls because gravity is trying to kill him. They have easy examples for Person vs. Society too (peer pressure), and Person vs. Person (who broke up with whom at lunch?). It’s such a fun lesson!


THURSDAY
Modern teaching is a crazy thing. When I was in high school, I had to type my papers in Word Perfect, a pre-Windows, pre-Microsoft Word, DOS-based word processing program. I printed my papers on a dot-matrix printer with paper-feed tracks on either side of the paper. In my freshman keyboarding class, we used actual typewriters. I don’t remember when I first got an email account, but it wasn’t until I was in college. (I’m pretty sure my parents started with Juno.)
Yesterday, I assigned a summary paragraph in “final copy form.” That meant the students had to write out their paragraphs in pen, with no mistakes or cross-outs. They asked if they could type their papers, as they always do, and I gave them my usual speech about not accepting excuses, even if their printers break or their computers crash, etc. I say things like, “If your printer breaks, grab a pen and start writing.” Every time I do this, I tell them (or someone asks) that it’s okay for them to email me their assignments or bring in a flash drive. (Good grief. Remember floppy disks?) Today I opened up my email account and had assignment emails from seven different students. I don’t mind; in fact, I try to compliment them on being so responsible. I’m just amazed at how technology has progressed, I guess.


FRIDAY
Good grief. I’m so exhausted, and it’s definitely affecting my brain. Today a student asked me to sign his assignment paper. His name is Alec. I took his paper and signed it, then handed it back to him. He and the students around him stared at me like I was crazy… which I obviously am. I had signed his paper “Alec” instead of “Mrs. Chandler.”

Resolution Report: I am back on track! 5 days of school, 5 days without Starbucks… 5 days of faithful Mr. Coffee. I could also claim victory because I didn’t visit Starbucks at all this week, even after school, but it’s really only because I was so busy. This will make my rendezvous with Starbucks that much sweeter tomorrow. Even better, it will make checking my grocery budget for the month less stressful.

Proud Teaching Moment

Today’s blog entry is a two-part story that started last Wednesday during ESP (homeroom) in the morning and finished during 7th period at the end of the day. During ESP, one of my girls blurted something out that she shouldn’t have (probably a crass word or something insulting about someone else), and when I corrected her, I said, “You need to use your internal filter!”
She got this funny look on her face and asked what a filter was. Before I could answer her, she went on to say that Mr. Drama Teacher and Mrs. PE Teacher had both told her the same thing before – that she needs a filter. I explained that an internal filter is something inside your head that stops you from blurting out everything you think. I told her not everything in her mind is meant to be said out loud, and that she needs to stop and think to herself, “If I say this out loud, what will happen? Will I get in trouble? Will someone be offended?” The confused look on her face cleared up and she said, “OH… so that’s why my other teachers told me that.” Then she paused… and said, “I don’t have one of those filter things.” I laughed and told her that was the problem and that, for lots of people, filters are something they have to practice in order to develop them inside their brains. She agreed and said, “Yeah, I could really use one of those.” It was a funny conversation, with a “life lesson” sort of tone to it.

Skip ahead to 7th period…

In Language Arts today we talked about the four types of conflict in literature: person vs. person, person vs. nature, person vs. society, and person vs. self. My kids were supposed to practice identifying each of these types of conflict in the story we read together, and then they had to find examples from their own reading books. When we started talking about person vs. self, I explained that sometimes people struggle to make a decision or argue with themselves inside their own heads about what they should do or say… and that is considered a person vs. self conflict. All of a sudden, my ESP girl with no filter raised her hand and had a really intense look on her face. She was so excited about her example! She waited until I was able to call on her, and then she said, “A filter! Person vs. self is like a filter! I don’t have that conflict, but I need to!” I asked her some questions to help her explain the rest to the class. She did such a great job. She talked about how sometimes internal conflict can help you make the right decision instead of just plowing ahead and getting in trouble. It was fantastic! Moments like that are why we do this job.

Where's Walden Media When You Need Them?

I am SO NERVOUS. The movie version of Diary of a Wimpy Kid comes out this Friday, and I am terrified that it will suck. In February, we saw the movie version of The Lightning Thief, which was nothing like the book, and now I'm afraid that this one will be bad as well. The previews look hilarious (and true to the story), but you never can tell... What if the previews already showed all of the funny parts? What if they change the ending or something equally stupid? Oh dear...

Mr. Chandler and I went on a date last night to Trader Joe's and Barnes and Noble (familiar date locations for us). We bought the first two Diary of a Wimpy Kid books because I have never read them. I plowed through the first one last night (between 8 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.), and I've been working on the second book today. The more I read, the more nervous I get. This is a story which needs to be handled carefully and accurately! (I know, I'm far more anxious about this than I need to be.) Tune in this weekend to get the scoop on this movie, I guess. You know me, folks. I'm either going to rant or rave. I hope it's deserving of a rave...

First Week of March

MONDAY
OMG. (I know, it’s so juvenile to use a phrase like that in my post, but you don’t understand how crazy I’ve felt today.) I went to Starbucks this morning, and I was still feeling out of it at 10:15 a.m. I was dragging. And it didn’t help that the kids were crazy. We had a fight in the hall, a case of girl drama, and some serious hyperactivity. Fortunately, Mr. Moore (best counselor EVER) makes a regular 3rd period Starbucks run and hadn’t left yet. I got in on it and ordered another triple grande something-or-other. Resolutions (and classroom coffee makers) are for preschool teachers. This middle school teacher needs something stronger. Come on, espresso shots…


TUESDAY
Today is Tuesday, which means I have to attend an action team meeting. I hate action team meetings; they actually make me wish for full staff meetings in the library. Our action team includes four people. Two of us will sit there listening while the other two talk over the top of each other. Maybe everyone else will forget...?
No such luck. It was as bad as I made it sound, with a side of bitchiness. The two of them were interrupting each other constantly, making snide remarks about each other, complaining about everything from poor use of staff meeting time (how ironic!) to why all of the other teachers aren’t teaching exactly what these two think they should be teaching (although these two don’t agree on what that is) – can I go back to my classroom now, please???


WEDNESDAY
Today, on a complete whim, I invented a new classroom management technique that gives instant results and makes students smile. I have this student who sits in the front row on the center aisle, and he is constantly turning around in his seat, usually to talk to the girl across the aisle in the second row. When I tell him to face the front of the room, he turns his head, but his arms, torso, hips, legs, and feet are still facing the girl. Today, I go so fed up with him that I blurted out, “Do you see that lizard magnet on my filing cabinet at the front? When I remind you to face the front, I mean that your arms, body, hips, legs, feet, hands, head, and eyeballs should all be facing that lizard magnet.” He understood, but he thought it was kind of weird that I was being so specific. I tested it out a few minutes later from the back of the room by saying, “Lizard!” As this sounded slightly derogatory, I changed it to “Salamander!" the next time. Fortunately, no one seemed to mind the discrepancy between the reptilian magnet and the amphibian name I decided to use. At this point, it seems to work quite effectively. As an added bonus, most of my other students respond to the Salamander call as well by immediately turning around to face the front of the room even though they know I'm not talking to them. I might be a classroom management genius. (Or I might just be a weirdo.)


THURSDAY
Ugh… I had such high hopes of making coffee in my classroom today. Unfortunately, I went to find another teacher this morning and didn’t manage to interact with my coffee maker until after 10 a.m. My ESP class was HORRIBLE. They were out of control, loud, hyper, and definitely not reading. My first block was awful as well. I have no choice but to conclude that my students’ behavior is positively affected by the scent of coffee in my classroom. (It couldn’t possibly be because I wasn’t awake enough to manage them…)


FRIDAY
Holy crap! Today we found out that one of our seventh grade students has been skipping school. He told his mom that the school was teaching homosexuality in one of his classes, and that he was really uncomfortable in that class. She was so horrified that she allowed him to stay home for three days.

(Seriously? In WHAT CLASS would we actually be teaching that? We’re too busy prepping kids for the state math test, the state science inquiry, the state reading test, the state writing test, the presidential fitness test, the art showcase at the next school board meeting, the orchestra festival next week, and the social studies test about the Arabian peninsula, etcetera, to go anywhere near a topic like that.)

Anyway... When the school started calling his house to find out why he hadn’t been at school in three days, the boy heard the message on his parents’ answering machine. He erased the message, of course. Then he showed up at school the next day with a note for the office saying that his home phone number had been disconnected and that the school should call his mom’s cell phone number from now on if they needed anything. The note looked suspiciously seventh-grade-boy and not middle-aged-mom, so one of our secretaries called the home number anyway. The mom answered. When the secretary read the note over the phone, the mom identified the new phone number as the student’s own cell number.

This entire episode is astounding to me. I’m impressed by his commitment to his plan; I also think it shows discouragingly high intelligence on the student’s part. What’s depressing here is that he is using his brain power for evil instead of for good. He concocted this elaborate plan, but he can’t be bothered to turn in his homework or behave in class. And he showed no remorse. He didn’t learn to tell the truth, and he didn’t learn to always come to school. If anything, he learned that his next sociopathic, criminal mastermind-style school-skipping scheme needs to be more polished than this one.

A RANT IN POETIC FORM (Free verse, no rhyme)

I made up a new song.
It should be sung to the tune of “Happy Birthday.”
It goes like this:
“I hate my new class,
I hate my new class.
I hate research writing….
I hate my new class.”

Seriously.
I hate this class.

I thought the LAST class was bad…
That professor required assignments from us on four different days of every week.
She actually told us that it was to make sure we were spending a little time every day on the class.
…because we’re children who need our work and our days mapped out for us?

Good grief.

HOWEVER…

That particular class turned out to be not so bad after all.
The assignments were easy, and the content of the class (and the assignments we created for it) were immediately and easily applicable to my teaching.
By week 7 of the class, I was actually enjoying myself.

I miss that class.

This class sucks.
This class is Educational Research.
It is not applicable to my teaching.
It’s not fun.
The assignments are not easy.
They suck.

He schedules four to seven (SEVEN!!!) assignments for each week, and they’re all due on Sunday at the end of the week.
I appreciate that he’s not trying to micromanage my schedule, but this is ridiculous.
In the first week, we had to read two chapters in the most boring textbook ever written.
We also had to read a couple of articles.
In the second week, we have to read FOUR chapters in the textbook and ELEVEN articles.
AND we have seven assignments.
I shudder to think what Week 3 will look like.
I don’t actually KNOW yet, though, because he doesn’t post the instructions for the week until the last day of the week before.
So even if I could manage to get ahead of things, I couldn’t work on next week’s stuff yet.
The whole workload is so much more than a real on-campus class.

Why?

Why do these people think I have no life?
(Okay, I have no life.)
Why does he think I don’t have a job that I’m dedicated to?
This class sucks.

Good Things in Small Packages

Today, March 5th, is my niece's birthday. What a fabulous day for a birthday!

I have a niece. That's so weird...
Her name is Hannah Joy Griffith, and she was born at 10 a.m. this morning. I'm going to have to remember to buy a birthday card every year around this time. (I don't mind. I'm excited for her to be here and for her parents.) So while we were writing "Connection to Self" literature responses, she was joining the world. She's three weeks early, but completely healthy. 6.9 pounds -- what a tiny little thing! Lucky girl, my sister-in-law... My brother sent me a picture text of baby Hannah, and she's got this wrinkly-but-peaceful little face. I am totally going to call her "Hannah Banana." (Someday I hope to have cutesy nicknames for all of my nieces and nephews. I never had a nickname, and I always wanted one. They'll probably wish they didn't have them. It's the circle of life.)

POP QUIZ

“…and really bad eggs…”

Hint: This particular movie line is meant to be sung. (When I threw this line at my students on Tuesday of this week, I sang it to them.)

Further hint that I gave my students: This particular movie line is the last line spoken out loud by any character in the entire movie. Actually, it is sung, as previously indicated, and is followed immediately by the end of the movie.

No one in my 1-2 block OR my 3-4 block knew the answer. In my 6-7 block, the fabulous (and incredibly smart) Luis knew it immediately. 10,000 imaginary bonus points for him!

Answer: Pirates of the Carribean (first movie – the Curse of the Black Pearl)

Fourth Week of February

MONDAY
Resolution Report: I don’t want to talk about it.

We are finishing the writing test today, just in time for… the reading test! That’s right, we’re doing the OAKS reading test this week. Because sound educational practice includes testing children to within an inch of their lives…

We were supposed to have moved on from the test by now, but we kept going because so many kids weren’t done. At my old school, the kids would have been done by now. I was thinking about why the Troutdale kids have taken so much longer, and this is what I came up: First, they talk more, so I spend a significant amount of time shushing them (and they spend a significant amount of time distracted). Second, they are trained to write multiple rough drafts. I consider this a personal success, actually. They are trained to revise and correct their rough drafts and then rewrite and check their papers again before moving on to the final copy. They stopped complaining about it in October, and it’s been standard practice in my classes ever since. We talked about the need to see a paper with fresh eyes – without getting distracted by the mistakes they’ve found, crossed out, circled, rewrote, etc. I’m not convinced that it helps them write better papers in general, but I certainly think it’s good for them to slow down and consider their work carefully. Now if only their care could translate into passing scores…


TUESDAY
Resolution Report: I only went to Starbucks because we were having a staff meeting this morning, and I couldn’t make coffee in my classroom in time. …also because I ran out of creamer at school. …also maybe a little bit because I wanted to. Stop judging me.

Today is Mr. Chandler's birthday. What a stupid day for a birthday. He has multiple meetings and won't actually get home until after 8 p.m. tonight. I also have multiple meetings today, and we're both sick. We're going to have to reschedule his birthday for this weekend, I think. Not that we had anything planned, of course... I'll just pretend that his birthday is Friday or Saturday and act really confused if he gets cards in the mail today. I can get away with this, too, because I'm just a little bit eccentric. Reality is for people with no imagination.


WEDNESDAY
I spent most of the day in meetings. I’m okay with that; they were productive. It’s usually difficult to be gone. Sub plans are okay, but it’s hard to explain exactly how things are supposed to go to a random stranger on paper. These were probably the easiest sub plans I’ve ever written. They went like this:

ESP – The students should be silent reading. They bring their own books. (Note: This is not a cop-out on my part. The entire school starts the day with silent reading in ESP on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.)
All other classes – Take the students to the computer lab. Keep them quiet while they take their reading tests on the computers. Our school testing coordinator will take care of everything.

It would be nice if they were all like that.
After spending all day in meetings at the local coffee shop, our local OEA office, and the district office, I went to visit my aunt at her house. We drank hot tea and sat in her comfy living room chatting about life, her kids and grandkids, my school, my parents, Mr. Chandler’s school, churches, cookie recipes, and other cheerful topics. It was lovely. I’m so used to my family ignoring me that I almost don’t know what to do with myself… And on top of the relational aspect of the afternoon, I loved how cozy it was. Light rain outside, strong hot tea and soft couches inside, friendly conversation, no assignments, no papers to grade, nothing to be accomplished except relaxing and enjoying the moment. The only thing missing was a cute puppy dog sleeping next to me.


THURSDAY
Our teachers’ association is currently conducting a survey about the principal of the high school in our district. His building has more issues than any other, and we’re fairly sure that the survey results from the teachers in his building will be pretty scathing. Today, he emailed me directly. Just me. That’s weird enough itself. The last time I saw him, he said he didn’t know who I was, even though I’d been in at least three small, memorable (somewhat acrimonious) meetings with him in the last year. He generally ignores my existence. Anyway, in his email, he asked if he could have the results sent to his house (standard practice) AND if he could meet with me to discuss the results and discuss his strengths and weaknesses, maybe get some insight into ways he could improve. In case you were confused, this is NOT standard practice, and it's even more strange coming from him! I’ll do it, but… it’s just so out of character for him. He thinks I’m a nobody. Why on earth would he want to talk to ME about this?

Could my day get any weirder?


FRIDAY
My dearest and best friend – let’s call her Army Girl – recently explained the reasoning behind a couple of awards/medals/commendations/I’m-not-really-sure-what-they-are for which she's been recommended. She's finishing up a year-long deployment in Iraq, and she rocked it! She definitely deserves medals. Anyway, she said she would recommend ME for a medal, either for valor or for merit. I’m not really sure about merit, but I definitely deserve a medal for valor. I spend all day with hormonal pre-teens! This job is not for the faint of heart. But I digress. So in my email response to her, I attempted to make these words into adjectives.

(Oops! Sorry. I should have warned you from the start... )
Grammar girl alert!!! Beware: I’m about to get my grammar nerd on.

I have no trouble with the word merit. The adjective form of the word is meritorious. No, really. (Stop snickering.) No one uses it that way, of course. It would be more normal for people to say “full of merit” or “having merit” and to skip the adjective form altogether. Grammar cowards…

Anyway, it’s the word valor that was giving me trouble. What exactly would you say? I don't really know, so I tried to make up some options:
Valorous
Valorful
Valorish
Valoresque

It’s funny… now that I’m typing this, spell-check recognizes valorous as the proper form. I didn’t know that. I think my other versions are more fun.


SATURDAY
I have another session with my parents and their therapist today. Ugh. Did I mention that I deserve a medal for valor?